ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Some long-awaited slip repairs are coming to Belmont County.

The Belmont County Board of Commissioners adopted the final resolutions for three Ohio Department of Transportation projects, with local shares to be paid using license plate fees.

On Wednesday, Belmont County Engineer Terry Lively said these repairs will address road slips from 2018.

“It’s been a long process, but we’re finally there, at least on these projects,” Lively said.

On Belmont County Road 46, or New Cut Road, shaft retaining walls will be built, including pavement repair and pavement marking. The estimated local share comes to $238,7000.

“There’s actually three slip projects included in this,” Lively said. “Two of them are from 2018. One of them from 2019. ODOT moved it up because it made sense to group them together when we’ve got the equipment there. It saved money off mobilization costs.”

The second project on Belmont County Road 24, or Boydsville Road, a soil nail retaining wall will be installed, since there are overhead power lines that would be prohibitively expensive to move. The local share is estimated at $55,000.

“A soil nail wall would be a better option than what we would do with a drill shaft,” he said.

The final project is on Sand Hill Road for a local share of $206,800.

“This is actually two projects combined,” Lively said. “One of them is the long slip going up the hill. We’re going to have a temporary traffic light, and the other is on top of the hill, it’s a much smaller project up there, but that will take care of the two that are on Sand Hill. There was actually more slips on Sand Hill, but those were not accepted as repair projects and we’ll have to do those on our own.”

Lively said the projects at each site may begin at the same time if there is no danger of blocking off access or egress to residents.

“In all of these cases it’s an 80/20 split, since these are Federal Highway routes,” Lively said. “We’re responsible for 20%. The 20% match was set aside from the $4 million note that we borrowed. That’s how we’re using that note, and that note is being paid off using the license plate fees.”

In 2018, the commissioners approved a $15 increase in license plate fees. Although Lively had hoped that additional funding of about $900,000 yearly could be used for bridge repair and paving, the multiple slips have demanded attention.

“All three of these should be completed by the end of this year,” he said.

More work is upcoming.

“We’ve got a lot of federal highways projects that are getting close to going to construction, so this is not the end of the list for the year at all. We’re taking care of repairs on Nixon Run with our own crews, that’s a federal highway project. We’re getting reimbursed for 80 percent of that. We’ve got a few more that may be coming during the summer months, so this is going to be a busy year for Federal Highway projects, and we’re also hoping we know of one big FEMA project coming and we’re hoping for more.”